Ordered my dream system today

But decided to go with Velocity Micro because I remembered my last
support experience with Dell, about 8 months ago, when I needed to
make a return and I couldn't even contact someone over the phone, and
the people I did deal with could barely type the English language. I
guess if they had been able to pull their head out of their arse I
could have overcome the communication problems, but it took many
months to get a simple return credited to my account.

I won't say I will never again order from Dell, but I will say that
the experience left such a horrible taste in my mouth that they just
lost a $4000 sale. If they had a competitive system at a competitive
price available it might have been a different story, but they didn't
even have the new GeForce 8800 cards as options on their top of line
XPS desktops, while pretty much every other vendor out there is
already shipping them. Also because they have those phony "Dell
Stores" (little kiosks inside the mall), I would have had to pay
another $200 or so in sales tax.

I've been buying Dells for the last 10 years but they broke my loyalty
with that off-shored, chat only support bullshit.

"Stephen Glazer" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
>
> But decided to go with Velocity Micro because I remembered my last
> support experience with Dell, about 8 months ago, when I needed to
> make a return and I couldn't even contact someone over the phone, and
> the people I did deal with could barely type the English language. I
> guess if they had been able to pull their head out of their arse I
> could have overcome the communication problems, but it took many
> months to get a simple return credited to my account.
>
> I won't say I will never again order from Dell, but I will say that
> the experience left such a horrible taste in my mouth that they just
> lost a $4000 sale. If they had a competitive system at a competitive
> price available it might have been a different story, but they didn't
> even have the new GeForce 8800 cards as options on their top of line
> XPS desktops, while pretty much every other vendor out there is
> already shipping them. Also because they have those phony "Dell
> Stores" (little kiosks inside the mall), I would have had to pay
> another $200 or so in sales tax.
>
> I've been buying Dells for the last 10 years but they broke my loyalty
> with that off-shored, chat only support bullshit.
>

Shame you didn't look at an Alienware or Falcon NW system, but so long as
you're happy, then you're happy.

That's all that matters.

i believe that the tech support that comes with the xps line is higher
quality than with thier regualr home system to compete with the likes of
velocity, falcon, and alienware (now owned by dell). interesting articles
about these sort of gamer machines found here... not technical articles, but
about overall purchase experience which you are clearly responding to:
velocity micro: pcx, high praise overall
http://consumer.hardocp.com/article....xoY29uc3VtZXI=
dell: xps 700, high praise for tech support, not so much for overall value
http://consumer.hardocp.com/article....wsaGNvbnN1bWVy

"Stephen Glazer" <> wrote in message
news:...
>
>
> But decided to go with Velocity Micro because I remembered my last
> support experience with Dell, about 8 months ago, when I needed to
> make a return and I couldn't even contact someone over the phone, and
> the people I did deal with could barely type the English language. I
> guess if they had been able to pull their head out of their arse I
> could have overcome the communication problems, but it took many
> months to get a simple return credited to my account.
>
> I won't say I will never again order from Dell, but I will say that
> the experience left such a horrible taste in my mouth that they just
> lost a $4000 sale. If they had a competitive system at a competitive
> price available it might have been a different story, but they didn't
> even have the new GeForce 8800 cards as options on their top of line
> XPS desktops, while pretty much every other vendor out there is
> already shipping them. Also because they have those phony "Dell
> Stores" (little kiosks inside the mall), I would have had to pay
> another $200 or so in sales tax.
>
> I've been buying Dells for the last 10 years but they broke my loyalty
> with that off-shored, chat only support bullshit.
>

On Fri, 1 Dec 2006 16:50:40 -0600, "S.Lewis" <>
wrote:

>
>"Stephen Glazer" <> wrote in message
>news:.. .
>>
>>
>> But decided to go with Velocity Micro because I remembered my last
>> support experience with Dell, about 8 months ago, when I needed to
>> make a return and I couldn't even contact someone over the phone, and
>> the people I did deal with could barely type the English language. I
>> guess if they had been able to pull their head out of their arse I
>> could have overcome the communication problems, but it took many
>> months to get a simple return credited to my account.
>>
>> I won't say I will never again order from Dell, but I will say that
>> the experience left such a horrible taste in my mouth that they just
>> lost a $4000 sale. If they had a competitive system at a competitive
>> price available it might have been a different story, but they didn't
>> even have the new GeForce 8800 cards as options on their top of line
>> XPS desktops, while pretty much every other vendor out there is
>> already shipping them. Also because they have those phony "Dell
>> Stores" (little kiosks inside the mall), I would have had to pay
>> another $200 or so in sales tax.
>>
>> I've been buying Dells for the last 10 years but they broke my loyalty
>> with that off-shored, chat only support bullshit.
>>
>
>Shame you didn't look at an Alienware or Falcon NW system, but so long as
>you're happy, then you're happy.
>
>That's all that matters.
>

Actually I did look at both. Falcon NW had a beautifully designed
Flashy website but the cost of the PC itself was, like Alienware, just
too much. To me, presentation takes a back seat to substance.

Alienware was $4450 and Falcon NW was $4700 for the approximately same
system as Velocity Micro was selling for $3650, which led me to
believe there was an extreme amount of brand-name inflation there.

They all had the same motherboard, Corsair DDR2-800 RAM (2GB), Core2
Duo e6700, 768 mb GeForce 8800GTX, Dual 10krpm 150gb drives in Raid 0,
X-Fi sound, 700watt PS, nice looking case with lights, room to grow,
etc, maxed cooling equipment,media reader, XP Pro Sp2 with Vista
Business Upgrade, etc.

Not to mention Alienware is now owned by Dell which means they can
charge me another $200 for salestax.

A quick look at www.resellerratings.com indicated a much better
customer satisfaction lifetime rating for Velocity Micro, and they
consistently make friends with the press.

Velocity Micro: 8.86
FalconNW : 8.75
Alienware: 7.16

Just my thoughts at the time I wanted to make the purchase (now). I
always re-evaluate things at the time of new purchase (2-3 years).
Dell used to be my favorite but their stupid affinity for offshored
labor lost my vote this time around.

Stephen Glazer wrote:

<snip>

> They all had the same motherboard, Corsair DDR2-800 RAM (2GB), Core2
> Duo e6700, 768 mb GeForce 8800GTX, Dual 10krpm 150gb drives in Raid 0,
> X-Fi sound, 700watt PS, nice looking case with lights, room to grow,
> etc, maxed cooling equipment,media reader, XP Pro Sp2 with Vista
> Business Upgrade, etc.
>
> Not to mention Alienware is now owned by Dell which means they can
> charge me another $200 for salestax.

Dell certainly has its faults, but sales tax isn't one of them. The $200
goes to the state in which you live (or to which have the system
shipped), not to Dell, they're just forced to collect it on behalf of
the various states.

On Sat, 02 Dec 2006 05:19:33 -0500, Sparky Spartacus
<> wrote:

>Stephen Glazer wrote:
>
><snip>
>
>> They all had the same motherboard, Corsair DDR2-800 RAM (2GB), Core2
>> Duo e6700, 768 mb GeForce 8800GTX, Dual 10krpm 150gb drives in Raid 0,
>> X-Fi sound, 700watt PS, nice looking case with lights, room to grow,
>> etc, maxed cooling equipment,media reader, XP Pro Sp2 with Vista
>> Business Upgrade, etc.
>>
>> Not to mention Alienware is now owned by Dell which means they can
>> charge me another $200 for salestax.
>
>Dell certainly has its faults, but sales tax isn't one of them. The $200
>goes to the state in which you live (or to which have the system
>shipped), not to Dell, they're just forced to collect it on behalf of
>the various states.

Understood they don't benefit from it, but its another $200 to tack on
to the PC cost if I order from Dell that I don't have to deal with if
I order from many other vendors.

Re: "its another $200 to tack on to the PC cost if I order from Dell
that I don't have to deal with if I order from many other vendors"

Depends on which other vendors.

Also, technically if you make a mail order purchase from out of state on
which no sales tax is collected, you are supposed to calculate and pay
the sales tax to your state yourself. In this case, it's called "use
tax" rather than sales tax, but it's the same thing. This is not
optional, and in theory you can be prosecuted and fined for failing to
do it, but it's difficult for the states to enforce.


Stephen Glazer wrote:

>
> Understood they don't benefit from it [sales tax], but its another $200 to tack on
> to the PC cost if I order from Dell that I don't have to deal with if
> I order from many other vendors.

On Sat, 02 Dec 2006 12:36:39 -0500, Barry Watzman
<> wrote:

>Re: "its another $200 to tack on to the PC cost if I order from Dell
>that I don't have to deal with if I order from many other vendors"
>
>Depends on which other vendors.

As I said, many other vendors, not necessarily all of them.

>Also, technically if you make a mail order purchase from out of state on
>which no sales tax is collected, you are supposed to calculate and pay
>the sales tax to your state yourself. In this case, it's called "use
>tax" rather than sales tax, but it's the same thing. This is not
>optional, and in theory you can be prosecuted and fined for failing to
>do it, but it's difficult for the states to enforce.

Yes, but as I'm sure you are aware, theory and practice are often at
odds with each other (evil laugh).

I remember having my dream system years ago. It was a Pentium 133Mhz,
with maybe 128M of memory, and two (yes, two!) 2G hard drives. It had
a 17" monitor, and maybe a 56k modem.

I also remember spending about $2,700 dollars on a Toshiba laptop with
a 4G hard drive. That was when you couldn't get one with a built in
optical drive, and the screens were 10".

I am sure others have their stories too. It's mind-boggling how fast
things have changed. One mp3 file could take up the whole hard drive
of the first hard drive Macs.

On Sat, 02 Dec 2006 00:06:32 GMT, "Christopher Muto"
<> wrote:

>i believe that the tech support that comes with the xps line is higher
>quality than with thier regualr home system to compete with the likes of


Who uses tech support any more. I just love it when I have a problem
at home and the pop up window says to see your system administrator.
At home I am the system administrator and don't know who to see than
look in the mirror. Inotherwords I have to solve my own problems but
of course this newsgroup is a GREAT help.